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The Soviets - 5/20/2012 2:31:01 PM

Mad Russian

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Playing the Soviets in FPG can test your abilities to their maximum.

The operational plans for Warsaw Pact units was to use brute strength to overrun NATO positions.

NATO's answer was to kill their tanks and men at such a rate that they couldn't sustain the attack all the way to the Atlantic ocean.

Nothing new there.

How does all this compare in FPG?

As the Soviet player you are at an extreme disadvantage. The terrain in the maps is generally open in front of your objective.

No surprise there. NATO worked long hard hours creating channels to funnel Soviet spearheads into killing zones.

NATO created tactical weapons of mass destruction. These were designed to dish out tremendous firepower in a small area. So, once the Soviet spearhead was identified, channeled into a kill zone it could be punished severely with firepower. NATO forces would then withdraw to another kill zone and the process would start all over again.

Great tactics by NATO. High attrition combat for little risk and loss of your own resources. All that had to happen was to get the Soviets to play the same game as we are good.

Ever heard of the Free Press? It's what you watch on TV, read in the newspapers or get on the internet. It's the news organizations of the world.

They poke and prod and tell everyone what they know. They poked and prodded in NATO for it's entire life. NATO commanders were proud of their intelligent answer to the problem of all those WP tanks. So, they talked about how they were going to stop them and how good their equipment was.

Add to that plain and simple spies.

The Soviets listened to every word. It was no surprise to the WP how NATO would fight. Down to the last order given. They studied our art of war just was we studied theirs. They had a huge advantage in one respect. They had fought against our art of war once before and won. NATO's attrition combat and retreat model copied fairly closely the German Army's combat actions in later 1944 and 1945.

NATO, with the exception of the West Germans, on the other hand have never fought the Soviet system. Western trained armies had, but NATO itself had not.

Score one for the WP.

Since they understand the operational and tactical concepts of NATO warfare they prepared to fight.

I think it's fair to say they didn't plan on playing NATO's game.

The Soviet model of warfare in the Post WWII era was built almost exclusively on the meeting engagement.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/20/2012 3:10:11 PM >

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RE: The Soviets - 5/20/2012 2:56:58 PM

Mad Russian

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The Meeting Engagement.

Because of the differences in MBT's and the defensive nature of NATO's equipment and training the obvious answer is to not attack prepared positions but to flow through it.

Reconnaissance is now King in the Soviet system. Find the weak point and thrust through it. Avoid positional combat situations at all cost.

As the Soviets advance they will of course come in contact with NATO forces and be engaged. As those engagements take place the WP commander gets a much better idea of the NATO force deployment before him.

Once he identifies the main NATO force deployment he tries to pin the main force with whatever forces of his initially engaged them and by pass them with his reserve and follow up units.

The initial Soviet force that makes the contact is left to survive the combat as best it can.

The goal is to have fluid engagements.

There are several reasons for this.

1) Soviet tanks are designed for this specific type of combat. They are smaller, and for the most part faster than NATO tanks. (FPG time period only) They don't have optics that are as good at longer ranges. The US Army itself determined average engagement ranges in NWE to be at 1500 meters. Coincidentally, the effective range of Soviet optics is just over 2000 meters.

2) The Soviets stockpiled tremendous artillery assets. The breakthrough into open ground rules. The breakthrough must be decisive. With that in mind the Soviets had a high percentage of their artillery stock piles that were smoke rounds. NATO countered this by making sights that could see through the smoke. Which was countered by the Soviets by having them add metal to their smoke. All to reduce visibility on the battlefield. What you can't see you can't kill.

3) NATO had a tremendous anti-tank capability with it's air forces. The A-10 is probably the best anti-tank aircraft ever made. Although the SU-25 isn't bad. Still, there have been only so many A-10's built. They couldn't be everywhere. In fact they would have been few places. A total of 716 were built. Many of those were not available in 1989.

For instance:

In 1987, many A-10s were shifted to the forward air control (FAC) role and redesignated OA-10. In the FAC role the OA-10 is typically equipped with up to six pods of 2.75 inch (70 mm) Hydra rockets, usually with smoke or white phosphorus warheads used for target marking. OA-10s are physically unchanged and remain fully combat capable despite the redesignation.

Not that the aircraft were unavailable but that they had been given different jobs. Which means their training hours were spent doing other things than shooting at tanks.

Aircraft for the most part are fragile. The A-10 is an exception. It is not fragile. Airfield destruction was high on the WP list of targets. They had a large number of FROG and Scud missile units that had airfield targets. After the first week to 10 days aircraft over the battlefield would be far fewer than in the first few days. The WP would slowly lose the air superiority battle but every hour that the VVS fought was another hour their armies moved further west.

The ground commanders answer to NATO air was to hug NATO units. To get so close that they couldn't use CAS. Again, the meeting engagement.

Another answer to NATO's CAS threat were large numbers of mobile AAA and SAM vehicles that would accompany the advance units.

4) Soviet studies after the war showed that most of the German's casualties were the result of actions after the breakthrough phase. In the pursuit phase. When the enemy was not in prepared positions. Again, the goal was to make the situation fluid. In a fluid situation greater numbers have an advantage.

Add all this up and the Soviet Art of War is extremely dangerous. It wasn't until 1985 that military analysts gave NATO an even chance of stopping the Warsaw Pact if they attacked. Stopping them before they reached the Atlantic ocean in France, Belgium and Holland. The 1989 time period is a short step beyond that.

What that means is the fight would be a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week slugfest for a month at most. The longer it took the better NATO was doing. The shorter it took the better the WP was doing.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/20/2012 2:58:13 PM >

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RE: The Soviets - 5/20/2012 3:08:33 PM

Mad Russian

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NATO's entire energy would be spent containing Soviet breakthroughs and giving them attrition losses.

Once the initial breakthroughs were made much of that task would fall to the NATO combat engineers. NWE is not the desert. This is one place where NATO actually did have an advantage. The close in terrain offered many points for combat engineers to affect the battle with their obstacles.

Bridge demolition was a main factor. All the bridges in Germany that I ever took the time to look at had explosives either already in place or chambers that simply needed filled to create the opportunity to destroy the bridge.

Forest lined roads were easily turned into an obstacle with nothing more explosive than det-cord fuse.

Slowing the WP advance would rapidly become a contest between NATO and WP combat engineers. Each side trying to create or clear obstacles as fast as humanly possible. The shear weight of numbers would have worked against NATO combat engineers. The work is hard and fighting around the clock would take it's tole. US combat engineers were expected to fight as infantry if the need arose. Everytime the WP could make that happen they gained another step to the Atlantic Coast.

Much of the WP was equipped with engineer equipment that vehicle mounted. Mine rollers for tanks, launch bridges mounted on tanks, ribbon bridges mounted on trucks, etc. They were expecting down bridges, road craters and minefields.

The question is, would NATO's combat engineers out perform the WP's ability to avoid the obstacles.

Great question and without the war having been fought there is no real answer to this question.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: The Soviets - 5/20/2012 3:32:21 PM

Mad Russian

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In FPG, as the WP I can't ask for smoke missions to hide my troops, the Americans always get A-10's, the maps are all open in front of the NATO positions, the T-80 is fairly ineffective and my orders delay times are longer.

So, what else is there?

From what I've seen so far there is simply mass.

Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

At least he's given credit for saying it. There is a truth to this. NATO units in the game are extremely capable. The Soviet/WP forces far less so. From what I've seen so far the only real game leveler is the size of the WP forces. But with the scenarios set to stop at casualty points that can even work against you. You can't just do an open ground assault over open terrain and win.

At the moment I'm still playing the WP side and trying to figure out what combination of resources and tactics in the game does allow the WP to win.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: The Soviets - 5/26/2012 2:36:12 AM

PavelKirilovich

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In response to your first post only, Mad Russian, amplifying some points:

The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) had an enormous impact on Soviet military thought. Their operational planning for fighting against NATO, as far as we know it and has been declassified for public use, reflects wartime experiences. These experiences were updated throughout the Cold War, most notably as a result of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, though this led to little change in the tank and motor rifle forces, a great deal of change everywheres else - most notably in the artillery, air defence and electronic reconnaissance/intelligence organizations.

Planning therefore consisted of either preventing the formation of a linear defence in depth through high-tempo combined arms advances, led by powerful forward detachments, or a breaking through of the linear defences through the entirety of their tactical depth to force NATO armies to commit to operational manouevre, something the Soviets believe they would do better than their NATO opponents. Given that NATO still has not fully grasped the concept of operational level warfare as the Soviets had and the Russians continue to do, thinking instead on a "mega-tactical" scale a'la the 19th century, I believe that assessment was probably accurate. If the enemy defence coalesced into battalion/brigade/division areas of resistance, arranged in depth, then the Soviet plan was to effect a breakthrough of this defensive zone and again, force the enemy into operational manouevre. [Simpkin, "Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukachevskii", plus a bunch of stuff by Glantz and Grau]

Given that the road and rail networks in Europe could support a maximum of 20-25 divisions on either side, massive Soviet superiority didn't count for much. I believe at the height of the Cold War the Soviets had 25 divisions ready to go, we had 18. Not too bad given Soviet divisions tended to be smaller and have less ability to sustain battle; the ability of an army or front to sustain a continued offensive depended, in large part, upon the echelonment (as distinct from reserves) of that unit's subunits. [General Simpkin, "Race to the Swift." Also, possibly, his work "Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukachevskii"]

There is such emphasis on the meeting engagement because if you win that, it was perceived by the General Staff that you would not have to conduct the above-described operations. You could transition directly into operational manouevre and begin kicking ass.

I believe you are completely correct when you say that NATO did not understand the Soviet conception of operational battle, or how they intended to fight the operational battle. Having talked to Soviet Army veterans and read DIA publications regarding the tactical methods of Soviet Army units, I think we had a very good handle on what they would try to do tactically. So did the Wehrmacht. However, the Wehrmacht was defeated comprehensively at the operational and strategic level and it is all well and good that your Tiger platoon destroyed a battalion of T-34s; but you are now encircled, along with the rest of your division, and out of ammunition. What now, mein herr?

And I think NATO would have been in the same boat, largely, especially given that they never forbade the German Bundeswehr to practice "Forward Defence", which granted is necessary because the Federal Republic of Germany had sweet f*ck all in terms of depth. You mention the German defensive practices of WWII, this is basically what we intended to do, but the Germans were unlikely to do that: because if they made just two steps back the way they did in 1944 and 45 being pushed out of Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, they'd find themselves in France.

What that means is that the Soviets would not have had a difficult time encircling units.

The primary doctrine was Air Land Battle. The core tenent of this is disrupting Soviet strategic and operational echelonment and to a lesser extent tactical echelonment, so we only have to fight one wave at a time, essentially. This is to be achieved through the use of airpower attacking across the Soviet tactical depth, and artillery firing into their tactical depth. This is all well and good, except Arabs manning Soviet air defences do not provide a good metric for what those air defences are capable of. I direct your attentions to Google. Input "SAM Simulator" and you'll see what I mean. It's quite a good program and demonstrates why the Arabs did not do very well with the equipment.

Enjoyed reading your thoughts, will hit up the rest of it when I have more time to read enjoyable things rather than coursework-things, MadRussian.

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RE: The Soviets - 5/26/2012 8:17:03 PM

Mad Russian

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There are some holes in the NATO defensive concept.

First, that there will be an air force to defend NATO with. Almost without exception forward hard tarmac NATO airfields would have been hit by long range operational missile units as well as VVS units. Runway cratering muntions and chemical weapons on target as means of denial and disruption would make NATO CAS a great question mark in the first few days of the war.

Second, the chemical strikes against logistics centers aimed at civilian workers would have wreaked havoc on the system. Civilians were a very large part of the system and were to be utilized wherever possible to keep military manpower levels low and support the local economies.

All well and good until that first SS-21 landed with a chemical warhead and the civilians either died or left the area.

How well would NATO fight with no fuel and ammunition?

Tactically, NATO made the mistake of assuming that the next war would be fought their way. Strength to strength. The Soviets had already fought that war once before and won it.

German tanks at the end of the war were in many cases individually superior to Soviet tanks. However, the Soviets won the war. This I believe could well have been the case in WWIII as well.

As the Germans found out, there is no contest when only one side has tanks in the fight. Since NATO would not have been able to create and maintain a solid battleline the WP would have been constantly on the move. This would have created the fluid situations that the WP trained for and NATO neglected. In all the exercises I was in NATO was always on the defensive behind belts of static defenses which were then withdrawn from to another well prepared line.

The Soviet style of warfare doesn't normally allow for time to do that. They pin the part of the front they want out of the fight and crush the part they want to penetrate with overwhelming firepower. Operation Bagration is even today studied as a classic example of force application and information mis-direction. (See, "The Role of Intelligence in Soviet Military Strategy in World War II" by David Glantz.)

At no point would NATO have the time and space to learn from it's mistakes. It had to get it right and it had to do it within the very first few days of the war. That was a huge advantage to the Soviets.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/26/2012 8:18:23 PM >

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RE: The Soviets - 6/22/2012 3:49:04 AM

Mad Russian

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Here are some more interesting studies done by the Soviets. There are some eye opening conclusions here, at least there were for me as part of the 3rd Armored Division. Where we were assured the M60A3's would stop any Soviet attack.

The US Army had a '3000 meter battlefield' attitude in the 70's. Now that I see some of this I wonder whose brilliant plan that was.

Soviet studies concluded that 15% of anti-tank engagements would happen at over 2,000 meters. 25% of anti-tank engagements would be fought between 1,000 and 2,000 meters. 20% would be conducted between ranges of 1,000 and 500 meters. 40% would be fought at ranges less than 500 meters.

Which means that 85% of anti-tank engagements would happen at no more than 2,000 meters not 3,000 and that 60% would take place at less than 1,000 meters.

The Israelis found during the 73 that the long range optics of American tanks was overrated. In the Middle East where there are long engagement ranges. In NWE the tank battles would be fought in a phone booth compared to the long distanced sniping that was being taught.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: The Soviets - 6/22/2012 5:45:39 PM

IronManBeta

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All good comments here.

I believe the Soviets counted on rushing the defense and hugging it to mitigate the technology issues. It is easy to see this working often enough to give the defenders fits at the tactical level.

At the operational level I see logistics being the more limiting factor. The Middle East wars saw ammo expenditures 5x - 10x peacetime estimates. Nobody in Europe had stockpiles capable of enduring that nor did they really intend to. The NATO goal was to defend conventionally for perhaps a week and then go nuclear. The conventional forces were just there to buy the politicians enough time to line up their ducks and issue the ultimatum. The political game was potentially far more decisive then the military game. Glad it didn't happen!

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RE: The Soviets - 6/25/2012 4:34:23 PM

PavelKirilovich

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With regards to your comment on combat engineers: It seems to me that greater Soviet mass and their operational (rather than tactical) focus would allow the Soviets to exploit more routes than limited NATO engineering capability could block. Bridges would certainly go down, but that was one of the tasks the Soviets were well-prepared for. Interesting national differences also arise; Dutch combat engineers would simply crack a bridge into the water, while German engineers preferred to obliterate the bridge, using much more explosive. The Dutch method requires the bridging force to clear more rubble or work elsewheres, the German method allows the bridging force to rebuild in the same area after clearing less debris.

Something's just occurred to me in light of Crandall's comment on logistics. One of the key conclusions drawn from the Arab-Israeli 1973 fracas was that 70%+ of tank casualties could be put back into action in very short order by regimental or divisional depots; few tanks were destroyed outright, most were abandoned after comparatively minor and easily repaired hits. Many militaries bolstered their recovery and repair capabilities at lower echelons as a result of this. The Soviets did not; but the Soviets also had a system of echelonment and reserves which permitted the battle to 'carry through' the area. MadRussian, you point out that the NATO tactical concepts were predicated on an orderly withdrawal until the Soviets ran out of things to hurl against our defences. This seems to leave the field in the possession of the Soviets: they could recover and repair losses on their own time, and when time mattered, their echelonment system allowed them to bring forward more units without waiting to repair and recrew vehicles.

Crandall: MadRussian has made a good case for the Soviets being tremendously disadvantaged in FP:G. I've encountered the same but managed to win several scenarios through careful application of what the Soviets would have called "military cunning." These wins have only been borderline though, because even minute NATO forces can inflict enormous losses on skilfully handled Soviet formations in FP:G. I cannot recreate tactical circumstances permitting such in battlefield simulators such as Operation Flashpoint (succeeded by the Armed Assault series). I have compensated for technological differences as well as those engines allow through modding - I have been involved with that community for over ten years now. Could updates to the FP:G engine through patches, or perhaps data files through patches, provide the Soviet player with a more even chance in mobile engagements? MadRussian and I have developed a pretty solid case for "NATO will probably have the advantage when dug in, but on the move the Soviets should be on parity or nearly on par with NATO".

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RE: The Soviets - 7/4/2012 5:00:56 PM

Mad Russian

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Meeting Engagement:

The Soviets see the meeting engagement as the most likely form of combat in the modern era.
Although capable of cross-country travel, Soviet units will normally travel by road. A battalion will
follow a single track. The average speed in is 30-40 km/h; 2/3 of that at night or in bad weather.
Vehicle spacing is 15-50 m on roads and 50-100 m cross-country. The battalion will be lead by an
advance guard of about 1/3 of its full strength. The flanks will be defended by squads.

The point of the advance is the a combat reconnaissance patrol. It will be 5-10 km (10-30 min) ahead
of the main body of the advance guard, and its main purpose is to locate enemy positions, and routes
to outflank or envelop the enemy. It includes:
� A motorised rifle platoon.
� 2 tanks.
� A a squad of engineers.

The main body of advance guard is also a combined arms force and is 5-10 km (20-30 min) ahead of
the battalion. It includes:
� Battalion headquarters.
� 2 motorised rifle platoons
� remainder of tanks (usually 2)
� remainder of engineer squads.
� 1/2 the battalion 120mm mortars.
� Attachments from regiment including heavy weapons and additional engineers.

The battalion commander may form a second combat reconnaissance patrol from the advance guard to
operate 1 km ahead of the rest of the advance guard. It will have the same composition as the first
patrol.

If the advance guard encounters enemy it will attack immediately. The aim is to eliminate opposition
that might block the advance of the main body. If the advance guard can break through then the main
body will not deploy. If more serious opposition is encountered, the advance guard will attempt to pin
the enemy to allow the main body to deploy and/or outflank the enemy. Failing that the advance guard
will will fight until reinforced by the main body, where upon both groups will assault together.

If information on the enemy is scarce, the advance guard may launch a probing attack. The aim is to
either infiltrate the enemy, or to launch a hasty company assault. One platoon, along with the artillery
and mortars will be on over-watch. The remainder of the company will attack on a 400m frontage making maximum use of cover. The tanks will lead the APCs/BMPs by 100m; the latter will advance in pairs. If opposition is too strong the company will retire.

If the advance guard and main body launch an assault this can be either a hasty attack from march or
an attack from march. In a hasty attack from march the companies are fed into the attack as they
arrive. In this situation fire support is provided by over-watching tanks or artillery that can fire direct
and by mortars using indirect fire.

In an attack from march the troops are deployed along the line of departure before assaulting. It takes
25-60 min from the moment of contact for a battalion to prepare an attack. This can be supported by a
10-20 min artillery offensive.

If the combine attack of the advance guard and main body fails, the battalion will call upon the second
echelon to resume the offensive. Failing that, the regiment will take over, etc.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 7/4/2012 5:06:28 PM >

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RE: The Soviets - 7/4/2012 5:01:55 PM

Mad Russian

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The Breakthrough Attack:

The aim of a breakthrough attack is to defeat enemy in prepared defenses and penetrate their positions. Often they are launched from contact under cover of darkness.

It is this phase of the operation where the Soviets expect to take their greatest casualties.

They will usually be supported by 10-40 min artillery offensives, and can involve air strikes, parachute drops and helicopter insertions.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 7/4/2012 5:05:29 PM >

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RE: The Soviets - 7/4/2012 5:04:14 PM

Mad Russian

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The Pursuit:

First echelon troops will pursue the troops they dislodged frontally, while second echelon troops
are committed to parallel pursuit - trying to cut the enemy off. It is in this phase the operation that the Soviets expect to inflict the most casualties on their opponents.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: The Soviets - 7/5/2012 8:03:23 PM

PavelKirilovich

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Part of the Soviet CONOPS is that under ideal circumstances, Warsaw Pact forces would deploy faster and maintain this tempo at a rate that has them encountering NATO units on the move to their preplanned defensive positions. This will result in an encounter battle conducted at the operational level, where the best Soviet commanders are and where their theoretical-doctrinal focus is centered. Tactical drills such as MadRussian has outlined for the Meeting Engagement (above) facilitate this; they are simple, so they can be quickly employed. If you visualize each one of those formations as the finger on a hand, it seems weak by itself. With four fingers spread though and probing forwards, such a tactical drill across the breadth of the unit's frontage facilitates quick envelopment or turning movements by the other probing fingers.

Great Patriotic War experience demonstrated to the Russians that attacks against modern weapons could not succeed without a great deal of preparation. General Simpkin in his work Race to the Swift suggests that while we (NATO) perceive the Soviets as laying in a hasty attack in two hours, the actual figure might be more like 36. This would be a powerful attack, but it entails huge delay. It may be possible for an aggressive defender to upset Soviet planning with spoiling attacks. Because of this delay the Soviet emphasis on the meeting engagement is designed to maintain a fluid "battle-state", obviating the need for prepared attacks or defenses.

The pursuit is the logical culminating point of not just the successful attack but also the meeting engagement. Because of the potential for matching mobility characteristics, wherein the enemy is as mobile as the Soviets, it may not be possible to create encirclements. Where it is desired to destroy large concentrations of enemy units, the Soviets are to be expected to employ units with mobility the next order of magnitude up (e.g. helicopter air-assault) to insert units into the enemy's operational depth to block lines of retreat. This would be compatible with the Soviet understanding of a pursuit.

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